Papers by Ana Inés Ansaldo
Frontiers in Psychology
A better understanding and more reliable classification of bilinguals has been progressively achi... more A better understanding and more reliable classification of bilinguals has been progressively achieved through the fine-tuning methodology and simultaneously optimizing the measurement tools. However, the current understanding is far from generalization to a larger population varying in different measures of bilingualism—L2 Age of acquisition (L2 AOA), L2 usage and exposure, and L2 proficiency. More recent studies have highlighted the importance of modeling bilingualism as a continuous variable. An in-depth look at the role of bilingualism, comparing groups, may be considered a reductionist approach, i.e., grouping based on one measure of bilingualism (e.g., L2 AOA) may not account for variability in other measures of bilingualism (L2 exposure, L2 use or L2 proficiency, amongst others) within and between groups. Similarly, a multifactorial dimension is associated with cognitive performance, where not all domains of cognition and subcomponents are equally influenced by bilingualism. I...
Psico, 2008
A espectroscopia de infravermelho próximo funcional (fNIRS) tem se mostrado uma ferramenta import... more A espectroscopia de infravermelho próximo funcional (fNIRS) tem se mostrado uma ferramenta importante na investigação da cognição humana. Dentre os processos psicológicos que necessitam ser detalhadamente investigados destacam-se as funções executivas (FE). O presente artigo buscou revisar estudos empíricos das FE realizados com fNIRS. Esta revisão sistemática mostrou, dentre outros achados, que a maioria das pesquisas focalizou: (a) os correlatos neurais do processamento cognitivo, (b) os componentes executivos de tarefas de fluência verbal e stroop, (c) amostras com predominância de participantes adultos jovens saudáveis, e (d) populações clínicas freqüentemente representadas por adultos esquizofrênicos. A técnica revisada por ser considerada válida para examinar correlatos neurobiológicos das FE
Copyright © 2014 A. I. Ansaldo and L. G. Saidi.This is an open access article distributed under t... more Copyright © 2014 A. I. Ansaldo and L. G. Saidi.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Introduction. Globalization imposes challenges to the field of behavioural neurology, among which is an increase in the prevalence of bilingual aphasia. Thus, aphasiologists have increasingly focused on bilingual aphasia therapy and, more recently, on the identification of themost efficient procedures for triggering language recovery in bilinguals with aphasia.Therapy in both languages is often not available, and, thus, researchers have focused on the transfer of therapy effects from the treated language to the untreated one. Aim. This paper discusses the literature on bilingual aphasia therapy, with a focus on cross-linguistic therapy effects from
Neuropsychological Research
El trastorno de lenguaje adquirido se identifica con la predida de la capacidad para nombrar obje... more El trastorno de lenguaje adquirido se identifica con la predida de la capacidad para nombrar objetos, o para recordar su nombre (anomia); la causa de los trastornos de acceso al habla varia segun el nivel en el cual el procesamiento lexical se encuentra afectado. De este modo, podemos encontrar anomias de tipo fonologico, semantico o mixto, con mayor o menor grado de compromiso en el nivel de programacion de la palabra. En todos los casos, la anomia constituye una fuente de handicap importante, dado que la capacidad de acceder a las palabras es esencial para conseguir una comunicacion eficaz. La investigacion en el campo de la fonoaudiologia muestra que las terapias que aumentan la activacion lexical por medio de la proudccion de rasgos semanticos permiten mejorar la denominacion de imagenes.
El control atencional de los bilingues les permite utilizar ambos lenguajes de forma alternante m... more El control atencional de los bilingues les permite utilizar ambos lenguajes de forma alternante minimizando las intrusiones de una lengua en la otra. En el presente trabajo se revisan de forma exhaustiva las evidencias que han puesto de manifiesto tanto una mayor capacidad de control cognitivo en sujetos bilingues, en especial en personas mayores, como su implicacion en el declive cognitivo asociado a la edad. Para ello se reportan resultados de estudios conductuales y de neuroimagen, los cuales han empleado diversos paradigmas que implican resolucion de la interferencia, entre otros. Posteriormente se establece un vinculo con la teoria de la reserva cognitiva, se discute el escaso protagonismo del bilinguismo en los modelos sobre envejecimiento cognitivo y se perfilan futuros campos de estudio y nuevas variables a considerar. Dado el creciente interes en la relacion entre la funcion cognitiva y el cambio neural, se proponen los candidatos neurales que podrian dar cuenta de la “vent...
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Revista medica del Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, 2009
BACKGROUND Word reading involves several steps, from the visual perception of each of its constit... more BACKGROUND Word reading involves several steps, from the visual perception of each of its constitutent elements to its recognition as an entity with a specific meaning. Various brain structures participate in these processes, depending of the linguistic and cognitive characteristics of the stimulus. Our objective was to characterize brain activity through the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) associated with the process of noun reading. METHODS Eleven healthy right-handed volunteers participated in a lexical decision task involving 58 written nouns. An equal number of letter sequences were used as control stimuli. Reaction times were also recorded. RESULTS There was a difference (p < 0.05) in reaction time between nouns and letter sequences in the lexical decision task. FMRI contrasted between conditions revealed significant activations in several areas involved in reading. CONCLUSIONS The brain activation may reflect the different perceptual demands associated ...
In the past years, especially since the 1990s, a period known as “the decade of the brain”, sever... more In the past years, especially since the 1990s, a period known as “the decade of the brain”, several scientific research fields have turned their focus to res...
Given that nowadays more than half of the world’s population is bilingual, the study of the neura... more Given that nowadays more than half of the world’s population is bilingual, the study of the neural basis of bilingual language processing has become a relevant and founding topic in the recent field of neuropsycholinguistics. This article has two main aims: 1) to discuss some methodological aspects related to the development of neuroimaging studies on language processing in the bilingual brain, and 2) to review neuroimaging data on language processing considering individual factors which have characterized the literature in bilingualism so far, for their impact on language architecture in the bilingual brain. Several studies have provided data on the role of age of acquisition, proficiency level, chronological age, learning method and language use on language organization in the bilingual brain. The variety of methodological approaches used and the lack of control of the various factors that can influence bilingual language processing have made it hard to draw conclusions on languag...
Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) has emerged as a valuable tool to investigate human... more Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) has emerged as a valuable tool to investigate human cognition. One of the most relevant cognitive aspects to be further explored is the role of executive functions (EF) in cognitive tasks’ performance. The aim of this article is to review empirical studies on EF processing conducted by means of fNIRS. This systematic review has shown, among other findings, that the majority of the studies has focused (a) on the neural correlates of cognitive processing, (b) on the EF components of verbal fluency and Stroop tasks, (c) mainly on healthy young adults populations, and (d) on clinical samples, represented most frequently by schizophrenic patients. The reviewed technique can be considered valid for examining neurobiological correlates of executive functions.
La lectura de una palabra esta constituida por diferentes pasos, desde la percepcion visual de ca... more La lectura de una palabra esta constituida por diferentes pasos, desde la percepcion visual de cada uno de los elementos hasta el reconocimiento como una unidad con significado. En cada uno participan estructuras anatomicas segun las caracteristicas linguisticas y cognitivas de los estimulos. El objetivo en esta investigacion fue caracterizar la actividad cerebral mediante resonancia magnetica funcional asociada al procesamiento de sustantivos. Metodos: a 11 sujetos sanos diestros se les presentaron 58 secuencias de letras como estimulo control y 58 sustantivos mediante una tarea de decision lexica a traves de la lectura. Se obtuvieron los tiempos de reaccion para cada estimulo. Resultados: encontramos diferencia (p < 0.05) en los tiempos de reaccion entre las secuencias de letras y los sustantivos. La resonancia magnetica funcional muestra activacion en diferentes regiones cerebrales relacionadas con la lectura. Conclusiones: la diferencia en la activacion cerebral entre los div...
Introduction Les personnes atteintes de demence (PAD) developpent des troubles de la communicatio... more Introduction Les personnes atteintes de demence (PAD) developpent des troubles de la communication qui impactent la relation avec l’aidant ce qui contribue a l’isolement de l’un et a l’epuisement de l’autre. Objectifs L’objectif est de valider COMmunication Proche-Aidants (COMPAs) en contexte de soins de longue duree. Cette application favorise les interactions grâce a du contenu audiovisuel personnalise permettant une communication centree sur la personne. Patients et methodes 17 aides-soignants ont utilise quotidiennement COMPAs aupres de 39 beneficiaires atteints de troubles neurocognitifs majeurs pendant huit semaines. L’etude mesure les effets de COMPAs sur la communication, la qualite de vie (QdV) du beneficiaire et le fardeau de l’aidant. Des questionnaires et des entretiens semi-diriges ont ete realises. Il s’agit du Test d’inventaire de burn out de Maslach (MBI) (Maslach, 2006) et du General Health Questionary 12 (GHQ 12) (Goldberg et al., 1997). Resultats Les analyses au t...
Brain and Cognition
A tight coupling of language and motor processes has been established, which is consistent with e... more A tight coupling of language and motor processes has been established, which is consistent with embodied cognition theory. However, very few therapies have been designed to exploit the synergy between motor and language processes to help rehabilitate people with aphasia (PWA). Moreover, the underlying mechanisms supporting the efficacy of such approaches remain unknown. Previous work in our laboratory has demonstrated that personalized observation, execution, and mental imagery therapy (POEM)-a new therapy using three sensorimotor strategies to trigger action verb naming-leads to significant improvements in verb retrieval in PWA. Moreover, these improvements were supported by significant activations in language and sensorimotor processing areas, which further reinforce the role of both processes in language recovery (Durand et al., 2018). The present study investigates resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) changes following POEM in a pre-/post-POEM therapy design. A whole brain network functional connectivity approach was used to assess and describe changes in rsFC in a group of four PWA, who were matched and compared with four healthy controls (HC). Results showed increased rsFC in PWA within and between visuo-motor and language areas (right cuneal cortex-left supracalcarin (SCC) cortex/right precentral gyrus (PreCG)-left lingual gyrus (LG)) and between areas involved in action processing (right anterior parahippocampal gyrus (aPaHC)-left superior parietal lobule (SPL). In comparison to HC, the PWA group showed increased rsFC between the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left thalamus, which are areas involved in lexico-semantic processing. This proof-of-concept study suggests that the sensorimotor and language strategies used in POEM may induce modifications in large-scale networks, probably derived from the integration of visual and sensorimotor systems to sustain action naming, which is consistent with the embodied cognition theory.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
International Journal of Stroke
Organon
is article presents the results of a study which investigated the performance of native speakers ... more is article presents the results of a study which investigated the performance of native speakers of English (L1) when reading texts in French (L2), language in which they had intermediate pro ciency. e study investigated, in relation to behavioral performance, these readers' accuracy and response times when processing the text at three di erent levels (the macro-and the micro-structure and the situational model), whereas, with respect to brain activity, the study analyzed the participation of the two cerebral hemispheres in processing the three levels mentioned above, using the fNIRS (functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy) neuroimaging tool. e behavioral results show statistically signi cant di erences between the two groups. e neuroimaging results indicate a statistically signi cant participation of the two regions of interest in temporal areas of the right hemisphere during processing at the macro-structure, as well as of temporal and frontal regions in the le hemisphere in comprehension at the microstructure.
OLBI Working Papers
In the last decade, the study of the cognitive advantages stemming from bilingualism has become a... more In the last decade, the study of the cognitive advantages stemming from bilingualism has become a major focus of research in neuroscience. The evidence suggests that bilingualism may contribute to building cognitive reserve but controversies still remain. This paper provides evidence of the so-called “bilingual advantage” by focusing on neural and cognitive reserve. Specifically, we shall discuss (a) the rationale underlying the idea that bilingualism might provide a cognitive advantage particularly in agingand (b) the evidence for two types of reserve associated with bilingualism, namely neural and cognitive reserve. In particular, we will focus on evidence from recent functional neuroimaging studies on elderly bilinguals carried out by our research group and others.
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Papers by Ana Inés Ansaldo